After a hectic few weeks, I am on annual leave! And what better way to start than with a yarn festival.
Last Saturday I hopped on a train to Farnham in Surrey for the annual Unravel Festival in the south of England. Set in an old mill, now called the Maltings, the festival is arranged in a myriad of rooms in this beautiful building.
Unsurprisingly for an old mill, it sits next to a small river which you walk past to get to the entrance. After all the recent storms, the river was high and fast running.
I loved the display at the front door:
There were 7 rooms in total and 80 plus stalls (I tried to count but lost track). It was easy to get lost but this added to the fun of discovering different stalls. There were also talks every day sponsored by Garthenor and various classes as well. I tried to keep track of the photos I took while wandering around but honestly I think the yarn fumes put paid to that idea!
The above gorgeous samples were from a German Dyer – Ovis et cetera who had driven all the way from Germany just for the weekend!
I can’t remember the name of the stall but the lady running it had repurposed old wool jumpers back into balls of yarn. Seeing piles of colour coded yarn made me very happy.
The above blanket, cowl and colourwork jumper were all from the same stall. By this point I had spent my budget but I couldn’t help stopping and looking at all the samples. Everything was beautiful. Soft to touch, highly skilled work and I could imagine wearing just about everything or having it in my home. It’s not often that a stall has weaving samples as well as knit and it really appealed to me. I now also really want a more complex loom! Once I have knit up more stash I will definitely be visiting the online shop. The stall was for a company called The Border Mill. The couple running it were chatty, enthusiastic and left you feeling welcomed. If I ever travel that far north I would love to visit.
There were so many things to see, yarn to squish and people to talk to. For some reason I get really shy at these events and didn’t talk to nearly as many people as I would have liked. It was also quite crowded which made it harder to chat. Other than that it was a fantastic day and only an hours train journey away.
I’ll make another post on my yarn acquisitions and the class I went to in the next few days 🙂
Did you go to Unravel? If so, I hope you had an amazing time! I’d love to hear how you found it.
Charlotte’s Makery 